Portraits of Viruses PDF Download

Author: Carl Zimmer
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022632026X
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 133

View

Book Description
For years, scientists have been warning us that a pandemic was all but inevitable. Now it's here, and the rest of us have a lot to learn. Fortunately, science writer Carl Zimmer is here to guide us. In this compact volume, he tells the story of how the smallest living things known to science can bring an entire planet of people to a halt--and what we can learn from how we've defeated them in the past. Planet of Viruses covers such threats as Ebola, MERS, and chikungunya virus; tells about recent scientific discoveries, such as a hundred-million-year-old virus that infected the common ancestor of armadillos, elephants, and humans; and shares new findings that show why climate change may lead to even deadlier outbreaks. Zimmer’s lucid explanations and fascinating stories demonstrate how deeply humans and viruses are intertwined. Viruses helped give rise to the first life-forms, are responsible for many of our most devastating diseases, and will continue to control our fate for centuries. Thoroughly readable, and, for all its honesty about the threats, as reassuring as it is frightening, A Planet of Viruses is a fascinating tour of a world we all need to better understand.

Author: Frank Fenner
Publisher: S. Karger AG (Switzerland)
ISBN:
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 360

View

Book Description

Author: Neeraja Sankaran
Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Press
ISBN: 0822987716
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 410

View

Book Description
In 1965, French microbiologist André Lwoff was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his work on lysogeny—one of the two types of viral life cycles—which resolved a contentious debate among scientists about the nature of viruses. A Tale of Two Viruses is the first study of medical virology to compare the history of two groups of medically important viruses—bacteriophages, which infect bacteria, and sarcoma agents, which cause cancer—and the importance of Lwoff’s discovery to our modern understanding of what a virus is. Although these two groups of viruses may at first glance appear to have little in common, they share uniquely parallel histories. The lysogenic cycle, unlike the lytic, enables viruses to replicate in the host cell without destroying it and to remain dormant in a cell’s genetic material indefinitely, or until induced by UV radiation. But until Lwoff’s discovery of the mechanism of lysogeny, microbiologist Félix d’Herelle and pathologist Peyton Rous, who themselves first discovered and argued for the viral identity of bacteriophages and certain types of cancer, respectively, faced opposition from contemporary researchers who would not accept their findings. By following the research trajectories of the two virus groups, Sankaran takes a novel approach to the history of the development of the field of medical virology, considering both the flux in scientific concepts over time and the broader scientific landscapes or styles that shaped those ideas and practices.

Author: Michael B. A. Oldstone
Publisher:
ISBN: 0190056789
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 513

View

Book Description
In Viruses, Plagues, and History, virologist Michael Oldstone explains the scientific principles of viruses and epidemics while relating the past and present history of the major and recurring viral threats to human health, and how they have influenced human events.

Author: Marilyn J. Roossinck
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781782403265
Category : Viruses
Languages : en
Pages : 0

View

Book Description
Viruses are the last frontier of undiscovered life on our planet. The most abundant type of organism on Earth, they infect all types of cellular life, and, as micro-organisms that cause disease in their hosts, they are highly opportunistic and relentlessly efficient. They exist at the vanguard of DNA variance, exhibiting more structural diversity than plants, animals, archaea, or even bacteria. This 21st-century guide offers an engaging introductory section explaining exactly what viruses are and how they operate, followed by individual profiles of 101 of the world's most notable examples, each with its own dazzling mugshot

Author: Dorothy H. Crawford
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0198811713
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 177

View

Book Description
Viruses are big news. From pandemics such as HIV, swine flu, and SARS, we are constantly being bombarded with information about new lethal infections. In this Very Short Introduction, Dorothy Crawford demonstrates from their discovery and the unravelling of their intricate structures, how clever these entities really are.

Author: Jussi Parikka
Publisher: Peter Lang
ISBN: 9780820488370
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 344

View

Book Description
Digital Contagions is the first book to offer a comprehensive and critical analysis of the culture and history of the computer virus phenomenon. The book maps the anomalies of network culture from the angles of security concerns, the biopolitics of digital systems, and the aspirations for artificial life in software. The genealogy of network culture is approached from the standpoint of accidents that are endemic to the digital media ecology. Viruses, worms, and other software objects are not, then, seen merely from the perspective of anti-virus research or practical security concerns, but as cultural and historical expressions that traverse a non-linear field from fiction to technical media, from net art to politics of software. Jussi Parikka mobilizes an extensive array of source materials and intertwines them with an inventive new materialist cultural analysis. Digital Contagions draws from the cultural theories of Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, Friedrich Kittler, and Paul Virilio, among others, and offers novel insights into historical media analysis.

Author: David Harley
Publisher: McGraw Hill Professional
ISBN: 0072228180
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 722

View

Book Description
Publisher's Note: Products purchased from Third Party sellers are not guaranteed by the publisher for quality, authenticity, or access to any online entitlements included with the product. Defend your system against the real threat of computer viruses with help from this comprehensive resource. Up-do-date and informative, this book presents a full-scale analysis on computer virus protection. Through use of case studies depicting actual virus infestations, this guide provides both the technical knowledge and practical solutions necessary to guard against the increasing threat of virus attacks.

Author: Stephen S. Morse
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0195355741
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 342

View

Book Description
New epidemics such as AIDS and "mad cow" disease have dramatized the need to explore the factors underlying rapid viral evolution and emerging viruses. This comprehensive volume is the first to describe this multifaceted new field. It places viral evolution and emergence in a historical context, describes the interaction of viruses with hosts, and details the advances in molecular biology and epidemiology that have provided the tools necessary to track developing viral epidemics and to detect new viruses far more successfully than could be done in the recent past. This unique book also lucidly details case histories and offers practical suggestions for the prevention of future epidemics. The contributors are leading authorities in their disciplines, and were selected both for their expert knowledge and for their ability to define and elucidate the fundamental issues. The book is highly accessible and has been written for a wide audience that includes virologists, public health authorities, medical anthropologists, evolutionary biologists, geneticists, infectious disease specialists, and social scientists interested in medical and health issues.

Author: Torsten Engelbrecht
Publisher: BoD – Books on Demand
ISBN: 3752629789
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 518

View

Book Description
"The book 'Virus Mania' has been written with the care of a master-craftsman, courageously evaluating the medical establishment, the corporate elites and the powerful government funding institutions." Wolfgang Weuffen, MD, Professor of Microbiology and Infectious Epidemiology "The book 'Virus-Wahn' can be called the first work in which the errors, frauds and general misinformations being spread by official bodies about doubtful or non-virus infections are completely exposed." Gordon T. Stewart, MD, professor of public health and former WHO advisor - - - The population is terrified by reports of so-called COVID-19, measles, swine flu, SARS, BSE, AIDS or polio. However, the authors of "Virus Mania," investigative journalist Torsten Engelbrecht, Dr. Claus Köhnlein, MD, Dr. Samantha Bailey, MD, and Dr. Stefano Scoglio, BSc PhD, show that this fearmongering is unfounded and that virus mayhem ignores basic scientific facts: The existence, the pathogenicity and the deadly effects of these agents have never been proven. The book "Virus Mania" will also outline how modern medicine uses dubious indirect lab tools claiming to prove the existence of viruses such as antibody tests and the polymerase chain reaction (PCR). The alleged viruses may be, in fact, also be seen as particles produced by the cells themselves as a consequence of certain stress factors such as drugs. These particles are then "picked up" by antibody and PCR tests and mistakenly interpreted as epidemic-causing viruses. The authors analyze all real causes of the illnesses named COVID-19, avian flu, AIDS or Spanish flu, among them pharmaceuticals, lifestyle drugs, pesticides, heavy metals, pollution, malnutrition and stress. To substantiate it, the authors cite dozens of highly renowned scientists, among them the Nobel laureates Kary Mullis, Barbara McClintock, Walter Gilbert and Sir Frank Macfarlane Burnet as well as microbiologist and Pulitzer Prize winner René Dubos, and it presents more than 1,400 solid scientific references. The topic of "Virus Mania" is of pivotal significance. Drug makers and top scientists rake in enormous sums of money and the media boosts its audience ratings and circulations with sensationalized reporting (the coverage of the "New York Times" and "Der Spiegel" are specifically analyzed).The enlightenment about the real causes and true necessities for prevention and cure of illnesses is falling by the wayside. For more reviews, see the older edition of "Virus Mania"